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Monday, January 26, 2015

The Beast Is Rising... um, I mean Yeast. The Yeast is Rising.

My first yeast bread as an adult.Cuz I'm A Big Girl Now!

I've always had this irrational fear of bread making. Yeah, I know. But it's true. So I finally decided to have my mother buy the uber-scary yeast (which I then tossed in the cupboard like a dead snake - if you've ever done hay you know what I'm talking about) and specifically avoided it for a few weeks.Today, spurred on by the lack of smell in the positively mouth-watering picture of my friend's homemade bread, I decided to scale this particular cliff, confront and slay the Evil Yeast Beast and MAKE BREAD.

Using a modern recipe:
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/basic-homemade-bread

The reason for this is that it's (slightly) more certain than a historic recipe. It also has reviews. Good ones.

I'm using 1/2 pastry, 1/2 whole wheat flour vs. all purpose, mostly because it's what I had on hand. This was much easier than what I remember making bread being like... which is a huge, horrible, stinky, sticky mess. This was not that at all.
First, it was scary (yeast is scary). No, it really is scary. Trust me.
Mixing it up was scary easy.
I was afraid it would be really sticky, and it was for like 8 seconds.
OK, maybe 12 seconds...

Then I kneaded it for 10 minutes, during which time I was no longer afraid. Nor did I take pictures because my hands were all flour... however, it got scary after that because raw bread dough covered in oil is like a monster that will eat you alive in your sleep. Don't leave this stuff in the fridge over night, it'll ooze out & swallow the dog like a giant D&D monster ooze from the Monster's Handbook.
Letting it rise was scary. Yeast is scary stuff. Trust me... see? Terrifying. It's ALIVE!!! ALIVE!!!